The Hike

I spent my birthday in Stanley, Idaho: population 63, nestled in the foothills of the Sawtooth Mountains and along the Salmon River. The day before my birthday, three of us from our group of seven friends decided to do a hike. The official name of the hike is Horton Peak, Lookout 3. The trailhead for this specific hike is 5 miles off the highway on a very rustic road.

Take a Free Ride

I love to close my eyes and concentrate on the sounds swirling around me. I have since I was little. While growing up on a farm in southern Minnesota, I awakened on summer days to the sound of mourning doves cooing and the rustle of wind through the maple trees that surrounded our house. Abruptly, the turn of a key would bring the loud sputter of a tractor being pressed into service. Occasionally my father’s voice would join the cacophony… with words I can’t repeat for fear of offending you, the reader. This colorful language was aimed at equipment that didn’t cooperate to the bang of his hammer.

You Got a Puppy?

By now, I have made it clear that the Schumacher family has a new addition. It has been the most exciting & challenging event in our family. “Why did you change the dynamics in an almost-empty-nest environment?” people asked. They have lots of theories…

Do More

Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

~ Hebrews 12:1-3

After a tragic event like a tornado, a hurricane, a flood….for those of us not directly affected by the event, life goes back to normal pretty quickly, and we all but forget that many people continue to live in the aftermath of these events for a long, long time.

The eyes of our middle school students who traveled to Minot a couple of weeks ago were opened to this fact as we walked the neighborhoods of this city still dealing with the aftermath of last summer’s devastating flooding. Our senior high youth traveling to New Orleans in 10 days will experience a similar situation in a city still dealing with the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.